Shopping search engines accept descriptions of a desired product or service that a user wishes to purchase, and return indications of dealers in the product or service. The user may then purchase the product or service from a dealer indicated by the search engine. The most common such shopping search engines are price comparison search engines such as mysimon.com, which return indications of dealers together with associated prices. Such shopping search engines lack the excitement provided by games of chance. Other shopping search engines include shopnow.com, bottomdollar.com, dealtime.com, and anaconda.net.
Conversely, games of chance do not permit the user to search for the prize to be won. The range of prizes to be won in any particular game of chance have generally been small, and determined by the sponsor of the game. Typically, only a single prize or a fixed range of prizes may be won. Such sites include Iwon.com, Iwin.com, Freelotto.com, Luckysurf.com, and Treeloot.com. Viewing advertisements typically is a prerequisite of play, and may increase a user's chance of winning at these sites.
Some sites allow users to win or buy one of a small number of predetermined prizes. Such sites include Bigprizes.com and Winday.com. None of these sites permits a user to search for an arbitrary item or service and attempt to win the item or service.